Virtual private meeting room

ABSTRACT

A method of providing a multi-media conference meeting, the method comprising the steps of providing each of a plurality of users with a unique user id; associating with each unique user id a virtual private meeting room; establishing a conference session, in response to an activation act by a user that is a meeting initiator, said session is associated with the meeting initiator&#39;s virtual private meeting room; and after establishing the conference session, establishing communications via a plurality of network connections between users that are logged in to the conferencing session.

This application claims the benefit of U.S. patent application Ser. No.11/509,253 entitled A SOFTWARE BRIDGE FOR MULTI-MEDIA TELECONFERENCINGAND TELECOLLABORATION, filed on 24 Aug. 2006, the entire content ofwhich is incorporated herein by reference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to phone conferencing, multimediaconferencing, online conferencing, collaboration software, real-timecollaboration applications, and more specifically to a virtual privatemeeting room.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

A need often arises for people to meet and share information, exchangedata or documents, discuss topics, or collaborate in preparing variousdocuments. It may not be desirable, or possible, for all of theparticipants in a meeting to be in the same physical location at thesame time, in which case meeting objectives may be achieved usingcommunication equipment or networks, and tools such as software toolsfor facilitating remote collaboration in a multimedia collaborationsession.

It can be useful for such a session to include a variety of media typesthat include the participants' voices, video images, shared documents,text messages, drawings, computer screen images, etc.

Several systems exist for teleconferencing or telecollaboration; inseveral such systems session information disappears a certain time afterthe session ends. For instance, a meeting participant that wants to seematerial presented during a previous session may not be able to find itseveral weeks after the session ended.

Some systems require a conference ID for each sessions, and some requirea distinct Conference ID and or user ID for sessions conducted usingdifferent types of media, for example if a user connects to a sessionvia a telephone and via a computer. Some systems don't allow a user tobe connected simultaneously from several devices, for instance both froma telephone and from a computer. In many systems the audio portion ismanaged on phones in a phone conference in parallel to a datacollaboration session on a different system—in this case each of thesessions has a different conference ID or entry code.

Another drawback of some prior art systems is that they allocateresources in advance and not only when a session actually starts. Forinstance some systems allocate telephony ports in advance, sometimes along time ahead. If the session does not start as planed the allocatedresources are released.

Therefore, it would be beneficial to provide improved systems andmethods for collaboration, which for example can overcome theillustrative drawbacks of existing collaboration tools mentioned orprovide new functionality to users.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

An aspect of an embodiment of the invention, relates to a system andmethod for conducting multi-user conferences, wherein each user canparticipate in the conference with multiple devices (e.g. telephones andcomputers) and multiple types of communication, for example audio,video, text. In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, each user isprovided with a unique ID to identify the user when connecting via anyavailable device and/or by any method of communication and associate allof the user's devices to the same meeting. A user that can initiate aconference is associated with a virtual private meeting room, whichdefines a virtual meeting place for multiple users to connect to andparticipate in a meeting when the virtual meeting room is activated.Optionally, the proceedings of the meeting are recorded and stored in adatabase associated with the virtual meeting room for future access bythe participants of the meeting. Optionally, the proceedings includeamong other things the list of participants in the meeting, the timeeach participant joined the meeting, a voice recording of theconversation in the meeting, a recording of any data transferred duringthe meeting, for example videos, files, text, and pictures.

In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, the data recorded from theproceedings of a conference is persistent and remains available afterthe conference is over. In some embodiments of the invention, themeeting room owner may edit the recorded data. Alternatively, therecorded data may not be edited but can be deleted by the meeting roomowner.

In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, when a user contacts aserver with one or more devices, each device may be identified to theserver by the unique user ID so that the server can join the device to acommon conference. In some embodiments of the invention, a conferenceinitiator schedules a conference by defining a virtual meeting room forconducting the conference, a time for the conference and a list ofuser's, which are identified by their user IDs that may participate inthe conference.

In some embodiments of the invention, the user dynamically activates hismeeting room, by accessing it and providing his credentials.

There is thus provided in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of theinvention a method of providing a multi-media conference meeting, themethod comprising:

(a) providing each of a plurality of users with a unique user id;

(b) associating with each user, that is permitted to initiate aconference meeting, a persistent virtual private meeting room;

(c) establishing a conference session, in response to an activation actby a meeting initiator, said session is associated with the meetinginitiator's persistent virtual private meeting room;

(d) when a session is active, establishing communications via aplurality of network connections and/or phone connections between usersthat are logged in/dialed in to the conferencing session.

In some embodiments of the invention, the user is a meeting initiator;said session is associated with the meeting initiator's virtual privatemeeting room.

In some embodiments of the invention, a unique user id is a uniquenumber or unique string or a combination thereof; a unique user id is aunique telephone number or a unique email address or a combinationthereof; or the user is allocated more than one user id.

In some embodiments of the invention, communication is establishedbetween the user's client software and at least one server that enablecollaboration among the users of a conference session.

In some embodiments of the invention, the user can be connected to aconference session simultaneously from a plurality of devices.

In some embodiments of the invention, the user has the same unique userid for connecting from different devices.

In some other embodiments of the invention, the user selects the type ofcontent to receive on a particular device.

In yet other embodiments of the invention, the user can be connected toa session, simultaneously from a remote computer and from a phone orfrom a handheld or wireless device having telephony capabilities.

In some embodiments of the invention, the user has the same unique userid for connecting to a session from a phone and from a computer.

In other embodiments of the invention, the user connects to differentconference sessions using the same unique user id.

In some embodiments of the invention, the virtual private meeting roomowned by the meeting initiator of a conference session stores loginformation of the session or by the user initiating a conferencesession, stores content provided or presented during the session or bythe user initiating a conference session, stores content provided orpresented during sessions initiated by said user.

In some embodiments of the invention, the content includes anycombination of text files, text messages, slides, multi-media files,shared documents, video clips, music, participants' voices and drawings.

In some embodiments of the invention, communication is established whenthe conference session is active and wherein establishing communicationcomprises dynamic allocation and release of resources.

In other embodiments of the invention, allocation of resources occurswhen the user joins an active session; release of resources occurs whena user leaves an active session; allocation or release of resources isbased on at least one optimization criteria; and allocation or releaseof telephony ports is carried out when a phone connects to a when asession that is active.

There is also provided in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of theinvention a computer-readable medium having computer-executable set ofinstructions for performing steps for providing a multi-media conferencemeeting, the set of instructions comprising (a) providing each of aplurality of users with a unique user id; (b) associating with eachunique user id a virtual private meeting room; (c) establishing aconference session, in response to an activation act by the user that isa meeting initiator, said session is associated with the meetinginitiator's persistent virtual private meeting room; and (d) afterestablishing a conference session, establishing communications via aplurality of network connections between users that are logged in to theconferencing session.

There is also provided in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of theinvention a system for providing a conferencing or collaborationsession, comprising a) at least one management and control software; b)at least one computer server c) at least one storage device d) at leastone persistent database e) a plurality of communication devices; thesystem (a) providing each of a plurality of users with a unique user id;(b) associating with each user id a virtual private meeting room; (c)establishing a conference session, in response to an activation act by auser that is a meeting initiator, said session is associated with themeeting initiator's persistent virtual private meeting room; and (d)after establishing a conference session, establishing communications viaa plurality of network connections between users that are logged in tothe conferencing session.

In the above exemplary embodiments of the present invention the virtualprivate meeting room is preferably persistent and resources for theconference session are dynamically allocated.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

The present invention will be understood and better appreciated from thefollowing detailed description taken in conjunction with the drawings.Identical structures, elements or parts, which appear in more than onefigure, are generally labeled with the same or similar number in all thefigures in which they appear, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of a conferencing system providingmulti-media conferencing services, in accordance with an exemplaryembodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a flow chart of a process for providing or participating in aconference session, in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of theinvention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS

The invention generally relates to a system, methods, and software forproviding multi-media conferencing or collaboration.

For clarity of the description, a non-limiting example of a multi-mediaconferencing service system is described as an exemplary embodiment ofthe invention.

FIG. 1 is a schematic illustration of a conferencing system 190providing multi-media conferencing services. Various elements shown inFIG. 1 cooperate to provide communication services among users,including telephony, multi-party conferencing and collaborativecommunications. By way of example, conferencing services are supportedby a service provider, which supplies a conferencing managementapplication 101 that operates with an interactive voice response (IVR)system 103 and an Distributed Internet Protocol (IP) conference bridge105 which is comprised of multiple distributed servers as described indetail in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/509,253 titled A SOFTWAREBRIDGE FOR MULTI-MEDIA TELECONFERENCING AND TELECOLLABORATION, filed 24Aug. 2006, the contents of which is incorporated herein by reference.Optionally, IVR system 103 controls directing of telephone connectionsinto conferences. Likewise, Web Server 201 directs PC client connectionsinto conferences. All aspects of each of the conferences are managed bya distributed IP conference bridge 105. Thus, a conference based uponelements, which use all the devices will be managed by system 190 as asingle session.

In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, conference managementapplication 101 processes requests to schedule a conference for acertain date and time as well as ad hoc activation of conferences byusers accessing their own meeting rooms. Conference managementapplication 101 allows logging of events pertaining to a conferencesession and recording of the control of the session as well as thecontent of the session. Optionally, session control includes logging ofevents, such as for example, start time, stop time, logon and logofftimes of each participant, along with indexing markers or annotationsinserted during the session by a presenter or participants. In anexemplary embodiment of the invention, the recording process, includesrecording video, audio, textual messaging conversations, presentationsand collaborative work as well as data items, such as documents orimages, which are introduced by participants in the course of themeeting.

The conference management application 101 controls a database 111,wherein session information and data is preferably stored. Database 111may be replaced by a number of different databases interconnected andlocated in various locations and managed by conference managementapplication 101. Additionally, conference management application 101performs various management functions for controlling conferencingservices, such as identifying the participants of the conference,authenticating participants that attempt to access or activateconferences and redirecting of participates to dynamically allocatedresources in conference bridge 105.

A communications network 117 provides communications among the processesand sub-systems of the network service provider. Network 117 can includemultiple interconnected networks, with connectivity, for example, to theInternet or other public data networks. The network 117, in an exemplaryembodiment, is a data transport network, such as an Internet Protocol(IP) based network, an Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) network, a framerelay network, or a combination thereof. The network 117 interfaces withtelephony systems, such as a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN)119 and a Private Branch Exchange (PBX) 121, via an IP gateway 125 or127.

The gateway 125 provides an interface between the network 117 and thePSTN 119. The gateway 125 allows a party using a conventional phone suchas telephone 124 or a wireless phone 126 to dial into the distributed IPConference bridge 105. IP Phones such as SIP Phone 141 can connect tothe IP conferencing system directly through the IP network without an IPGateway. It is noted that the SIP phone 141 can be implemented as astand-alone device or as a software client, for example on a personalcomputer.

Similarly, the gateway 127 couples the network 117 to a private branchexchange (PBX) 121, which supports one or more PBX telephones 122. Inthis example, the PBX 121 resides at the user's site. The PBX 121 isoften of proprietary design and function, but presents a standardsignaling and trunk interface in order to be connected to conventionaltelephone networks. Gateway 127 enables telephone 122 to participate inconferences through the network 117.

In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, personal computers 137, 139and voice over IP phones (e.g. SIP phone 141) are connected to network117. Optionally, personal computers 137, 139 may require the use of asoftware client (not shown) to enable the transfer of data from theclient stations to system 190.

In an exemplary embodiment of the invention each of a plurality of usersis provided by system 190 with a unique user ID. Optionally the user IDis provided by management application 101. The unique user ID is aunique number or a unique string or a combination thereof. The uniqueuser ID can be a unique telephone number or a unique email address or acombination thereof. The unique user ID serves the user to connect frommultiple devices to a conference session, for instance from telephone122 and from computer 137 and be recognized as a single user controllingmultiple devices in a concurrent session. Optionally these connectionsare established simultaneously, although some devices may be usedsimultaneously and some may be used sequentially as the need arisesduring the conversation. The unique user ID also serves the user forconnecting to different sessions that occur at different times. In someexemplary embodiments of the present invention, the need to recognize auser using more than a single device arises when users would use onedevice to transfer audio signal from and to the conference and anotherdevice to transfer data from and to the conference. Such exemplarysituation arises when a user does not have a microphone connected to hiscomputer, for example, or when the user's computer lacks a sound card,or if the user's computer is connected to a low band connection whichwill not effectively convey both data and voice information from and tothe conference.

In some embodiments of the invention, a user is allocated more than oneuser ID, for example one to identify the user as he/she logs onto system190 and a second user ID to identify a meeting room for the user (asdescribed below). Optionally, one user ID may be a function of theother, for example the second user ID may be the first unique user IDwith an additional number appended to it or removed from it. The uniqueuser ID is used for example to allow the user to log in to scheduleevents or respond to invitations to schedule events, or to allow system190 to link between conversations conducted by the user with more thanone device (e.g. PC and telephone). In contrast the meeting room ID maybe given by the user to others in order to allow them to enter hismeeting room to conduct meetings.

In some embodiments of the invention, the unique ID comprises a uniquenumber or a string of characters which is allocated by system 190 orselected by the user and verified for uniqueness by system 190. In someembodiments of the invention, the unique user ID may be a telephonenumber or an email of the user.

In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, a virtual private meetingroom is associated with each unique user id. All information associatedwith a conference session or meeting, such as information presentedduring the meeting, is associated with the virtual private meeting roomof the meeting initiator. Optionally, the information comprises thesession log information of the participants, content provided orpresented during the session, wherein content includes any combinationof text files, text messages, slides, multi-media files, shareddocuments, video clips, music, participants' voices and drawings.

In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, the information associatedwith the virtual private meeting room is saved in database 111 and isstored indefinitely. Therefore, the virtual private meeting room isconsidered persistent, since information associated with previousconference sessions can be accessed at any time in the future after aconference was conducted. To maintain persistency of the conferencefiles and data, each conference file or data is associated with a UserID and is stored such that each such user whose ID is associated withsaid file or data may later access or retrieve the files and dataassociated with his ID. Data stored in the database 111 can include dataassociated with each conference, such as the names of the participants,the location of each participants, information about each participant,the time the conference begun and ended, the materials used, themessages exchanged, the documents sent to participants, notes made byany of the participants, a recording of the conference, meta dataassociated with the conference to include statistical data, dataassociated with a number of conferences, for example a series ofinterrelated conferences, meta data associated with a number ofconferences, including statistical data, usage times, talk times, thenumber of documents exchanged, the bandwidth taken and the like.

In an exemplary embodiment of the invention a user initiates aconference meeting by accessing management application 101. Accessingcan be from a client software, for instance from a web browser (e.g.accessing a web page that is designed to let the user schedule ameeting) or from Microsoft outlook (e.g. using the calendar to schedulemeetings) or from a specially designed client software. The process ofinitiating a meeting comprises providing a meeting name or meetingsubject, providing a date and time and duration of the meeting,providing a list of participants, wherein each participant is identifiedby a unique user ID, and optionally providing additional information.Alternatively a user can activate a meeting in an “Ad hoc” manner byconnecting to system 190, provide his meeting room ID, and initiatorpassword. Once the user has “opened” his/her meeting room other userscan be notified to join the conference session.

In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, a user can join aconference by logging into system 190 and requesting to enter a specificmeeting room, or system 190 may be set to automatically “pull” the userinto concurrent conferences which requested his/her participation assoon as they login.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart 200 of a process for providing or participating ina conference session, in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of theinvention. In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, a user connects(205) to system 190 with a PC (e.g. personal computer 137) or atelephone (e.g. telephone 122, 124) or any other communication device.Optionally, the user may provide a meeting room ID of the conference inwhich the user is interested to participate (210) and the ID ispreferably validated (215). Optionally, system 190 determines (220) ifthe meeting room for accommodating the conference is a valid meetingroom that was defined in system 190. If the meeting room ID is not validsystem 190 will indicate that an error (230) has occurred and denyservice or allow the user to reenter the meeting room ID. If the meetingroom ID is a valid ID, system 190 determines if the meeting room isactivated (225) to allow users to enter and participate in a conference.If the meeting room has been activated for a conference the user enters(280) the meeting room and joins the conference, wherein the user mayparticipate by viewing the conference material and contribute to theconference. However if the meeting room is not activated system 190determines (235) if the user is the owner of the meeting room and canthen initiate a conference. If the user is not the owner of the meetingroom the user will enter (260) into a waiting state, wherein system 190will periodically query (270) the status of the meeting room and if itbecomes available allow the user to enter (280). When the user entersthe meeting room his device (PC or phone or other communication device)is automatically redirected to an allocated server in the distributed IPconference bridge (282). In case of phone the phone is redirected fromthe IVR to the distributed conference bridge, and in the case of a PCclient application the client application receives a list of availableserver and establishes an IP connected to the one of the servers. Thesystem may also dynamically allocated additional conference servers toserve this conference in case resources on one of the serversparticipating in this conference are exhausted.

If the user is the owner of the meeting room the user will beauthenticated by providing (240) the owner password, which will bevalidated (245) in database 111 by system 190. Other now known or laterdeveloped authentication methods can also be applied by those skilled inthe art. Optionally, after verifying that the user is the owner of themeeting room, system 190 will activate (250) a conference using themeeting room. In this phase Management system 101 dynamically allocatesresources on one or more servers in the distributed conference bridge105 to the conference (252) and the user enters the meeting room (280)as is described above.

In an exemplary embodiment of the invention, once a user has activated ameeting room, the user may provide IDs of users or groups of users thatare allowed to join the conference or open the conference to any userthat is interested in joining. In some embodiments of the invention, thelist of users that are allowed to participate in the conference isprovided when scheduling the conference.

In some embodiments of the invention, users cannot enter the meetingroom if the meeting room owner is not logged in. Alternatively, usersthat were invited to a scheduled conference may enter the meeting roomand begin the conference even without participation of the owner of themeeting room.

In some embodiments of the invention, if the owner logs out the meetingroom is closed down and any active conference is ended. Optionally,users that participated in the conference may have access to the recordsthat were created by the conference and stored on database 111.

In some embodiments of the invention, the owner of the meeting room isthe first presenter and the other participants are not provided withprivileges allowing such participants to change documents or uploaddocuments or make notations on a shared document. In other alternativeembodiments of the present invention each user, whether owner of themeeting room or not is provided with privileges with respect topresenting, changing or editing documents, making notations and thelike. Such privileges can be provided prior to the conference based onpredetermined user preferences or owner preferences.

In some embodiments, the system and methods of the invention provide aclient-server infrastructure capable of supporting multimediaconferencing activities in a virtual private meeting room. Theclient-server infrastructure supports data persistence, so that datafiles associated with the virtual private room can be stored forsubsequent access.

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the meeting roomresources are allocated by the system 190 only once the conferencesession is activated. The resources will be typically dynamicallyallocated such that available resources such as hard disk space, bandwidth, processor time and like resources are provided to the activatedmeeting room according to the number of participants which joinedeffectively. Thus, even if a conference is scheduled for hundreds ofusers and only a handful or users eventually join the conference, suchconference (event) resources are limited to the number of participantsthat actually joined. In practice, once a participant joins theconference the system 190 will review its available resources andallocate additional resources which are necessary to maintain anefficient conference. System 190 is provided with predetermineddefinitions of which resources are required to obtain a the level ofservice expected from the conference, such as what is the amount of diskspace, band width, processor time necessary, and the like. Optimizationcriteria may be used to enhance the quality of service provided duringthe event. Such can include the expected bandwidth available to eachparticipant, the quality of video or audio provided to each participant,the distance between each of the servers and each of the participants,the location where conference materials are stored, the availability ofstorage for each participant, and the like. For better quality ofservice additional resources will be required, though these areallocated, as noted above, on the basis of participants effectivelyjoining the conference. The resources may also be allocated and releasedbased on the optimization criteria. Thus, in one exemplary embodiment ofthe invention, if to provide better video or audio quality additionalresources are to be allocated, and if such resources are available, suchresources will be allocated when a particular participant joins or is ofneed of such resources.

In some embodiments of the present invention resource allocated to anevent are releases back to system 190 when a user leaves an activesession. Such resources may be reallocated to other on going events.

In some embodiments of the present invention telephone ports areallocated to an event only when a telephone connects to a session, ifsuch session is active. Such allocation is efficient since personswishing to connect to an event will not be allocated a port until suchtime when the even is active and the participants can begin theconference. Until such time, the waiting participants are put on holdthus releasing some of the telephony ports for the use of otherparticipants in other on going “live” events.

The present invention has been described using non-limiting detaileddescriptions of embodiments thereof that are provided by way of exampleand are not intended to limit the scope of the invention. It should beunderstood that features described with respect to one embodiment may beused with other embodiments and that not all embodiments of theinvention have all of the features shown in a particular figure ordescribed with respect to one of the embodiments. It is noted that someof the above described embodiments may describe the best modecontemplated by the inventors and therefore include structure, acts ordetails of structures and acts that may not be essential to theinvention and which are described as examples.

While the above description has focused on methods, it is meant to alsoencompass apparatus for carrying out the invention. The apparatus may bea system comprising of hardware and software. The apparatus may be asystem, such as, programmed computers or a network appliance. Theapparatus may include various computer readable media having suitablesoftware thereon, for example, diskettes and computer and/or flash RAM.

Structure and acts described herein are replaceable by equivalents,which perform the same function, even if the structure or acts aredifferent, as known in the art. Therefore, only the elements andlimitations as used in the claims limit the scope of the invention. Whenused in the following claims, the terms “comprise”, “include”, “have”and their conjugates mean “including but not limited to”.

1. A method of establishing a multimedia conference meeting, comprising:dynamically generating, using a single system, a first unique useridentifier and a second unique user identifier; correlating, using thesingle system, the first unique user identifier only to a first user,and the second unique user identifier only to a second user; associatingthe first unique user identifier with a first persistent virtual privatemeeting room dedicated to the first user, and the second unique useridentifier with a second persistent virtual private meeting roomdedicated to the second user; establishing a first conference sessionusing the first persistent virtual private meeting room in response toan activation act by the first user, and a second conference sessionusing the second persistent virtual private meeting room in response toan activation act by the second user; establishing communications via afirst plurality of network connections among users that are logged in tothe first conference session, after establishing the first conferencesession, establishing communications via a second plurality of networkconnections among users that are logged in to the second conferencesession, after establishing the second conference session, whereinresources for establishing the communications among the users that arelogged in to the first conference session and second conference sessionare dynamically allocated, after respectively establishing the firstconference session and second conference session, using a distributedconference bridge comprised of a plurality of servers and based on atleast one optimization criteria that corresponds to quality of serviceprovided respectively during the first conference session and secondconference session, wherein at least one user is concurrently connected,via a first plurality of distinct devices, to the first conferencesession, and at least one user is concurrently connected, via a secondplurality of distinct devices, to the second conference session, whereinresources presented during the first conference session in the firstpersistent virtual private meeting room remain available in the firstpersistent virtual private meeting room after the first conferencesession ends, and resources presented during the second conferencesession in the second persistent virtual private meeting room remainavailable in the second persistent virtual private meeting room afterthe second conference session ends, and wherein multiple conferencesessions initiated by the first user are conducted in the same firstpersistent virtual private meeting room and not in any other virtualprivate meeting room, and multiple conference sessions initiated by thesecond user are conducted in the same second persistent virtual privatemeeting room and not in any other virtual private meeting room.
 2. Themethod according to claim 1, wherein each of the first unique useridentifier and second unique user identifier comprises one of: a uniquenumber, a unique string and a combination of the unique number and theunique string.
 3. The method according to claim 1, wherein each of thefirst unique user identifier and second unique user identifier comprisesone of: a unique telephone number, a unique email address and acombination of the unique telephone number and the unique email address.4. The method according to claim 1, wherein a plurality of unique useridentifiers are allocated to the first user, and a plurality of uniqueuser identifiers are allocated to the second user.
 5. The methodaccording to claim 1, wherein at least one server enables collaborationamong the users that are logged in to the first conference session, andat least one server enables collaboration among users that are logged into the second conference session.
 6. The method according to claim 1,wherein a first shared unique user identifier is shared among each ofthe first plurality of distinct devices that concurrently connect atleast one user to the first conference session, and the a shared secondunique user identifier is shared among each of the second plurality ofdistinct devices that concurrently connect at least one user to thesecond conference session.
 7. The method according to claim 6, whereinthe at least one user concurrently connected to the first conferencesession via a first plurality of distinct devices selects a type ofcontent to receive on at least one of the plurality of distinct devices,and the at least one user concurrently connected to the secondconference session via a second plurality of distinct devices selects atype of content to receive on at least one of the plurality of distinctdevices.
 8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the at least oneuser concurrently connected to the first conference session is connectedvia a remotely located computer and via at least one of: a telephone, ahandheld device and a wireless device having telephony capabilities, andwherein the at least one user concurrently connected to the secondconference session is connected via a remotely located computer and viaat least one of: a telephone, a handheld device and a wireless devicehaving telephony capabilities.
 9. The method according to claim 8,wherein a first shared unique user identifier is shared among each ofthe telephone and the remotely located computer for connecting to thefirst conference session from the telephone and from the remotelylocated computer, and wherein a second shared unique user identifier isshared among each of the telephone and the remotely located computer forconnecting to the second conference session from the telephone and fromthe remotely located computer.
 10. The method according to claim 1,wherein the first unique user identifier is used to connect the firstuser to different conference sessions, and wherein the second uniqueuser identifier is used to connect the second user to differentconference sessions.
 11. The method according to claim 1, wherein thefirst persistent virtual private meeting room is owned by the firstuser, and wherein the second persistent virtual private meeting room isowned by the second user.
 12. The method according to claim 1, whereinthe first persistent virtual private meeting room stores at least one ofcontent provided during the first conference session and contentpresented during the first conference session.
 13. The method accordingto claim 1, wherein the first persistent virtual private meeting roomstores at least one of content provided during conference sessions bythe first user and content presented during conference sessions by thefirst user.
 14. The method according to claim 13, wherein contentprovided during conference sessions by the first user comprises at leastone of: text files, text messages, slides, multimedia files, shareddocuments, video clips, music, user voices and drawings.
 15. The methodaccording to claim 1, wherein communications are established when thefirst conference session is active by dynamically allocating resources.16. The method according to claim 15, wherein resources are dynamicallyallocated when users joins an active conference session.
 17. The methodaccording to claim 16, wherein resources are released when users leavethe active conference session.
 18. The method according to claim 16,wherein telephony ports are allocated when a telephone connects to anactive conference session.
 19. At least one tangible non-transitorycomputer readable medium that stores a computer-executable set ofinstructions, recorded on the at least one tangible non-transitoryreadable medium, for providing a multi-media conference meeting,comprising: generating code segment, recorded on the at least onetangible non-transitory readable medium of a single system, thatdynamically generates a first unique user identifier and a second uniqueuser identifier; a first providing code segment, recorded on the atleast one tangible non-transitory readable medium, that correlates,using the single system, the first unique user identifier only to afirst user; a second providing code segment, recorded on the at leastone tangible non-transitory readable medium, that correlates, using thesingle system, the second unique user identifier only to a second user;a first associating code segment, recorded on the at least one tangiblenon-transitory readable medium, that associates the first unique useridentifier with a first persistent virtual private meeting roomdedicated to the first user; a second associating code segment, recordedon the at least one tangible non-transitory readable medium, thatassociates the second unique user identifier with a second persistentvirtual private meeting room dedicated to the second user; a firstestablishing code segment, recorded on the at least one tangiblenon-transitory readable medium, that establishes a first conferencesession using the first virtual private meeting room in response to anactivation act by the first user; a second establishing code segment,recorded on the at least one tangible non-transitory readable medium,that establishes a second conference session using the second virtualprivate meeting room in response to an activation act by the seconduser; a first communications establishing code segment, recorded on theat least one tangible non-transitory readable medium, that establishescommunications via a first plurality of network connections among usersthat are logged in to the first conference session, after establishingthe first conference session, a second communications establishing codesegment, recorded on the at least one tangible non-transitory readablemedium, that establishes communications via a second plurality ofnetwork connections among users that are logged in to the secondconference session, after establishing the second conference sessionwherein resources for establishing the communications among the usersthat are logged in to the first conference session and second conferencesession are dynamically allocated, after respectively establishing thefirst conference session and second conference session, using adistributed conference bridge comprised of a plurality of servers andbased on at least one optimization criteria that corresponds to aquality of service provided respectively during the first conferencesession and second conference session, and wherein at least one user isconcurrently connected, via a first plurality of distinct devices, tothe first conference session, and at least one user is concurrentlyconnected, via a second plurality of distinct devices, to the secondconference session, wherein resources presented during the firstconference session in the first persistent virtual private meeting roomremain available in the first persistent virtual private meeting roomafter the first conference session ends, and resources presented duringthe second conference session in the second persistent virtual privatemeeting room remain available in the second persistent virtual privatemeeting room after the second conference session ends, and whereinmultiple conference sessions initiated by the first user are conductedin the same first persistent virtual private meeting room and not in anyother virtual private meeting room, and multiple conference sessionsinitiated by the second user are conducted in the same second persistentvirtual private meeting room and not in any other virtual privatemeeting room.